Learning Project

I loved #ecmp355 and I can honestly say that I am sad that it is over. Although it was an online class, I felt that we were all so tight-knit even though we were never altogether in a classroom. My PLN has definitely expanded over the semester. Everyone shared such great resources, ideas, and feedback that I will take away with me and use in my Internship and future classrooms. I would like to share how I contributed to the learning of my classmates and how my PLN has expanded.

Let’s start with Twitter, my new-found love! As I have said time and time again, Twitter is such a great resource. I shared many great articles for my classmates and followers to check out:

I also connected with many great people on Twitter including Carol Todd and Amanda Todd Legacy.

WordPress is also a newfound love of mine, and I find that it is a great way to give and receive feedback and share ideas! Here is how I contributed to the learning of others through WordPress.

I did not spend much time on GooglePlus because I feel that I was benefitting more from Twitter and WordPress, but here is my small contribution. I tried to reach out to my classmates and hear their thoughts on the #saskedchat that I missed, but no dice!

Also during our weekly sessions I felt that I gave some good insight on topics that we were discussing and hope that I was able to help my classmates think about things in a different way.

Overall, I felt that each and everyone of the spring 2016 #ecmp355 contributed to new learnings and I have taken away so much from the class

This week for my #learningproject, I was inspired by Jessica to expand my horizon and search for apps to help me with my yoga. I had never thought of using an app before, but I am glad I did. I went on a manhunt for the perfect yoga app and came across the Yoga Studio app . It had great ratings on App Store as well as great reviews. So I downloaded it and began to explore. I found many great things and compiled this small list:

it is simple and easy to use. The layout makes it easy to navigate

there are many videos and many sequences to chose from

the videos are all in high definition making it clear and easy to follow

if you have an iPhone, you can connect it to the health app

smart link feature enables you to connect poses that might not naturally lead into each other. This way you see exactly how to smoothly move from one pose to the next

I then decided that it was time to try it out. I headed over to the beginner yoga sequences and started searching for a sequence. I was a little upset that I still consider myself at a beginners level, but then I decided that I should not be hard on myself. I looked back on my first couple of posts, and realized that I had made progress, and that’s all you can ask for!

Below is an example of a sequence.

The woman in the picture talks you through each sequence,in a nice, calming voice.

Another thing that I like about this app is that it shows you each pose that you are going to do in a list, so if you wanted to skip to a particular part of the sequence, you can click on it and it will take you there.

Below is a picture of the sequence that I decided to try. My video would not upload so I decided to take pictures instead!

I decided to show you some of the new poses that I have been working on. This one is called cat pose. I really like this one because it helps with my lower back pain, which I have noticed improvements on since I started this learning project!

This next pose is called half camel. My hand is supposed to be touching my ankle, but as you can see I couldn’t get that far! I felt a good stretch in my abdomen, but this one actually hurt my lower back.

This pose is called crab pose. From looking at some pictures, my body should be in more of a straight line. At the time, it felt like it! Honestly! This pose definitely challenged the core. I compare it to a plank, except it’s like a reverse of it!

This last one is a warrior pose, and although it’s not a new pose of mine, I wanted to share it because it has improved immensely since the beginning of my learning project!

I thought I would end this pose off with a good laugh. I thought my phone had already taken the picture, but I guess not! You also may be wondering why I’m wearing a dress while doing yoga and I feel the need to explain. I will be hopping on a plane soon and didn’t really want to mess up my suitcase trying to find other clothes, so I thought I would give it a whirl in a dress! They always say you should try doing new things….

I have been feeling very under the weather these past few days. The doctor told me I have a throat infection which doesn’t come as a surprise since I am “blessed” with one every couple of months it seems. Therefore, this week I chose to focus on another simple routine to improve my flexibility. I tried so hard to find a place to set up my laptop or camera in the house to record a video, but I could not figure out a place that would show all of my poses. Each way that I tried it either my upper body or lower body was cut off. So I gave up and decided to take pictures of me doing some of the poses. You can tell I am sick because you can see the roll of toilet paper in the background (ran out of kleenex), and I am wearing my baggy sweat pants.

I came across this morning yoga routine. I started to explore more videos by Tara Stiles and then I came across a great youtube channel called LiveStrong Girl. It has so many great yoga and workout routines as well as many healthy meal and snack recipes.

The yoga routine starts with a forward bend and then goes into a forward lunge like I demonstrate below.

To make it a little more difficult, I reached my arms over my head for more of a stretch.

In the video she also does a downward dog pose, which is one of my favorites. You may be wondering why my title is Downward Cat and not Downward Dog. Well as you can see in my picture below, my cat Dude decided he wanted to do yoga too!

Tara did not finish with a corpse poses in her video, but Dude decided it was a necessary way to finish the sequence off!

I have decided to stick to short videos because I do not think you have to do hours of yoga a day in order to see improvements. Short bursts of activity can be just as beneficial and in some cases more beneficial. And let’s face it, when you have a throat infection you don’t have the energy to get up and do a lot!

I have only have a few weeks left of this learning project and I can’t wait to keep sharing my progress with you!

I have found myself gradually getting stressed and overwhelmed as the week goes on. I am feeling the pressures of the semester wrap up catching up to me. I have been so exhausted trying to balance work with three spring classes as well as all the other aspects of my life. However, I have come to realize that this is only temporary and that I have to learn how to deal with it in the meantime. Therefore, I introduce to you 3 calming yoga poses, showcased by your one and only. Before I began, I made myself some chamomile tea because I’ve read so many good things about it. My first reaction when I tasted it was: well I could just go and boil some weeds..it would probably taste the same. But it is growing on me!

The first pose I did is called the Lotus pose. This one was my favourite out of the three. It promotes inner calmness and eliminates anxiety.

Im not sure if this is the actual name of the pose but this website calls it the legs-up-the-wall pose. This pose helps to calm you because it helps to renew blood and lymph drainage back into the heart area.

The last pose I did was the head-to-knee forward bend. As you can see, my flexibility is pretty much non-existent here, however I feel like it has improved. This website gives you step by step directions on how to do this pose. It supposedly helps to relive mild depression, anxiety, fatigue, and insomnia…so this pose is right up my alley!

I have found blogging to be very therapeutic. Shocking, considering I once found it to be such a drag. I would like to thank Katia for encouraging us to stick with it. And by encouraging I mean forcing us to do it in our classes…in the most loving way of course!

Now that I am relaxed and have released some stress, I’m going to patiently wait for the storm to arrive so it can put me to sleep. I find those to be calming as well. Weird… I know.

I spend my summer days cutting fairways at a local golfcourse. I absolutely love my job. I get to spend the whole day outside… what more could a person ask for in a job? The only downfall is that work starts at 5:30 am, therefore I have to get up around 4:30. It is very hard to get into this routine first, but it gets easier. The upside is that I am done at 1:30, way before most people get to go home after a long days work. I find my job to be very relaxing and I appreciate the alone time since I do not always get that at home.

This morning I was feeling ambitious…which can be a shock for someone who does not start their day at 4:30 am. I decided to try doing the sun salutation. This is the video that I followed. I liked it because she breaks down the poses step by step and goes at a good pace so it is easy to follow.

You are probably wondering where my humorous video is. Well, I did not want my followers to see what I looked like so early in the morning. But I assure you that I definitely did do it. It actually helped wake me up and set the tone for a good day. My initial thought was that it would make me even more tired, but it did the exact opposite.

I also wanted to research the benefits of doing this routine first thing in the morning. This website gives 5 reasons as to why it is the best way to start your day.

I also found this website to be also very helpful because it explains the benefits of children doing the sun salutation. Since I am an up and coming teacher, I became intrigued and wanted to dig deeper. I decided to look up the benefits of incorporating yoga into the classroom. Here is what I found from this website:

since it is essential for children to develop and improve their fine motor skills at a young age, yoga can be very beneficial for improving balance and flexibility

children also tend to get sick often, and incorporating yoga in the classroom can help improve the immunity in the classroom

Yoga also promotes thinking and memory

Stimulates auditory processing and responsiveness

it also can calm and clear the mind, bringing us into the present moment as well as relieve tension and stress. For this point I thought about those students who have a cognitive disability and how calming the mind may help them when they become overwhelmed.

another important point that I like is that yoga can encourages social and environmental awareness and responsibility which can lead to a happy inclusive classroom.

I have never thought about incorporating yoga into my classroom, but after doing some research I am starting to think that it may be a good idea! However, I have to be sure to improve on my yoga skills before teaching my students some poses!

As many of you know, I decided to take up yoga for my learning project for my #ecmp355 class. Well, I have struggled to keep up with it lately. I have been finding it hard to balance work, which starts at 530am, three spring classes, my family, boyfriend and fitness. I chose to do yoga to help manage my stress and anxiety because I really struggle with it when I become busy and overwhelmed. However, it has added to my stress! But with a few deep breaths and later, I decided to conquer it.

I started by typing: Yoga For Beginners into Google. Here are some images that popped up.

My first reaction was: okay I can do this. They look easy! So I tried them… But first I wanted to see how flexible I was. After years of dance and playing sports I thought it would be pretty good..but as you can see from the look on my face, I wasn’t too impressed! I’m also not wearing makeup here, so I think I was also scared when I was looking at myself in the camera!!

What you are about to witness now, are examples of some very bad yoga. Do not try this at home! I am hoping to come back to these poses at the end of the assignment and display my improvements!
I decided to start off simple. This first pose is called the child’s pose,or balasana. I found This website to be very helpful because it shows how to do each pose step by step, has a video that you can watch, and gives you the benefits and some complications that you might have with the pose. I found this pose to be very relaxing and it was fairly easy to do.

This next pose is called the cat pose, or marjaryasana. You can find the full description of the pose here. This pose felt very good on my back and stretched out my lower back which is a problem area for me.

The next pose that I decided to try was the warrior one pose. As you can see from the website, I have some improvements to make! Despite my terrible form, it was a fun one to do.

Next I decided to tackle the warrior two pose. My rendition of the pose is terrible compared to the picture on the website. However, I can only go up from here and hopefully show improvements.
Next came tree pose, or vrksasana. This one was fun and definitely tested my balance. While the person in the Picture definitely looks better than me, I thought I didn’t do too bad! (Hence my cheesy smile)

Now this last one I can definitely do, and tend to do it for at least 8 hours a day.. The corpse pose! (Savasana) it actually has a a lot more benefits than I thought. You can check those out here.

Overall I was happy with what I accomplished today and look forward go seeing my growth!

For my ECMP 355 class we were asked to do a learning project in which we could choose to learn anything we wanted. I chose to learn how to do yoga because I feel that as I get better, it can help manage stress!

Below is a slightly embarrassing video of me attempting yoga poses. The lovely Brooke Korchinski chose random yoga poses for me to do and I had to come up with my own interpretation of what I thought they meant.